The Shadow Caster
by smeegal61
Summary: One shot. From BOTL to MOA. Because everytime Percy leaves, he leaves behind a hole, a shadow and it's the only thing that Annabeth has to hold onto.


**A weird kind of one shot, set from BOTL to MOA. Percy leaves Annabeth behind a lot (unintentionally) both physically and, occasionally, emotionally. This is a kind of metaphorical analogy about the fact that Annabeth spends most of her time with his shadow, his absence, rather than with him. In case you don't get this (I probably wouldn't), the shadow isn't actually there. It's just representative of the fact that Percy isn't around and that Annabeth can't reach him. **

**Kind of angsty, I dunno, I like the ending. This is actually the first idea I ever had when I was going to write FF. Anyway, please read and tell me what you think - I won't be offended if you don't like it! Rick Riordan owns all, I'm just a little writer who fell in love with his characters…**

Annabeth was chasing shadows.

The first time it happened was after Mt St Helens. Percy had told her to get out, leave and all Annabeth could think was how she should be punching him, slapping him, screaming at him for even thinking that she would leave him on his own. She could hear her heart though, whispering and cutting through the cacophony of her thoughts, telling her _this is Percy he's not going to let you stay around if he can save you but he's going to die and your never going to know what his lips feel like on yours and he's never going to know that you love - _

And she kissed him. With a single throw away comment (she still can't remember what she said, only the thumping of her heart and that adorable face that Percy made), she put on her cap and ran. She didn't stop, knowing constant movement was the only thing keeping her from returning to him.

Then the volcano exploded and her world went with it. She stood and stared in amazement as it self destructed… and noticed it for the first time. A space, a hole where Percy should have been standing right next her, a shadow that his light no longer filled. It was shapeless and black as night and every movement she made, it followed her.

So she turned and ran to find help because Percy wasn't dead, couldn't be dead. He just had to be found.

…

She told herself that everyday. He said he had a plan. He wouldn't lie. (She knew she was just kidding herself but lies were better than reality at this point.) _It_ followed her around for the two weeks he was lost. She moped and wept and begged Chiron to give her a quest to find him but he just shook his head sadly and patted her hand. She was reaching out to the shadow, trying to find the real Percy but each time she touched its fingers, her hand just passed right through. She kept searching.

And then he was back and for all of two seconds she was flinging her arms around him in front of the entire camp. He was real and solid and warm and alive. For a few moments he was there until he started fading away again, falling through her fingers. This time it was almost worse because he was right next to her, she could see him, but she was being left behind, replaced with that _stupid, interfering _mortal girl.

At the end of that summer, she left him standing at the top of the hill and it was the only time she ran away from him, his shadowed, half formed self. She saw him reach for her, stop her from leaving, but she walked away as if he was little more than air. Because he couldn't leave if she left first.

…

She kept an eye on him throughout the summer, with Iris Messages when he wasn't looking or following him while wearing her Yankees hat. She knew he saw Rachel more often than he'd ever admit and with each visit, he got greyer and more fuzzy. She knew she was losing him.

Then he came back from the Princess Andromeda, without Beckendorf, and she began to hope. If he could survive that, who was to say he couldn't survive a war too? And she had taken a little piece of him back from Rachel because he was here, with her, not on that frivolous holiday. She couldn't help but feel triumphant.

Throughout the war, his shadow grew stronger and weaker as different events occurred. When she saw that dagger, she panicked. She just knew that the grey, flickering shade he was now would be nothing compared to the all encompassing oblivion that would surround her should that dagger get to its destination. So she jumped and all she could feel was _painpainpainpain _until suddenly Percy was there, holding her hand and it was okay. A slight shadow was better than nothing.

She had knelt on the floor, Luke dead at her feet, looking at those sea-green eyes, hope growing that they might both actually live, that they might get what they really want. She had panicked when he was offered immortality, but the look in his eyes as he refused it made up for any heart attack she might have had. She had watched Rachel take on the Oracle of Delphi with the knowledge that it meant there was another obstacle out of her way.

But she didn't allow herself to look, really look at him until her arms were around his neck and his hands were hesitantly placed on her hips. And he was dazzling, perfect, radiant as the sun. Her Seaweed Brain in all his glory.

…

And three months later, the shadow he cast in her life was back. It had been a perfect three months (she had told him so, then kissed him, that dazed look she loved so much coming back onto his face) and then Hera just had to intervene. This time, she wouldn't stop searching, she wouldn't step back because he was her boyfriend and there was no way that she would let some goddess of cows ruin that.

It didn't stop it from being the hardest experience of her life. The shadows under her eyes matched the spectre she was chasing, following any and every lead she could just to find Percy but each time she reached out, it was just a shadow and her fingers slipped through the apparition. But finally, after months of work, sleepless nights and her heart constantly beating _percypercypercypercypercypercy_, she found him, kissed him, and then judo flipped him. Gods, it felt good to finally have something to actually judo flip.

Sure enough, they were split up again, but for once it was her leaving him. She was terrified, with only vague suspicions of what she had to face, who she was going to come up against, but she knew it was worth it, she knew she had to do it. He was waiting at the other end, with an aching heart she was all too familiar with and she would do anything, fight anything, to get to him.

And she did. She faced a broken ankle, old cults, collapsing underground temples, millions of spiders and Arachne herself, but she still made it and found herself in his arms once again. The sensation was so welcome, so overwhelming, she never noticed that one, innocent piece of spider's web around her ankle. Neither did Percy, too wrapped up in her. Before she knew it she was free falling, only to stop with a jerk when his hand caught hers. He knew what she had been through, knew her biggest fear was that he'd fade into that shadow again, leave her to face it all on her own.

So he called out, told the others to meet them at the Doors before she even realised what he was doing. Her mind didn't work quickly enough at the one time in her life when it was imperative. When he let go, she screamed and fell. He fell with her. To begin with, all she could feel was the fear, the terror of what was to come. As the hours passed and she was still falling, the fear began to subside as there is only so much you can feel before shutting down. At one point she fell asleep, still holding his hand, giving herself over to waiting for imminent death. When she awoke, she was no longer falling, instead on hot, dry, arid ground, the air musty around her.

She was no longer holding his hand. This time there was no shadow to see; the world around her was only shadows, an evil blackness she had never seen anywhere else. She reached out, her hand grasping _empty_ _nothing _and cried out Percy's name, never feeling so alone.

But she stood, and hobbled, desperately ignoring the slithering sounds behind her, calling his name as loudly as she dares and once again chasing his shadow.

…

And yeah, she's sick of it. But she'll never stop. Why?

Because she's in love with the shadow caster.

**Please review xx**


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